'And the child Samuel ministered unto the Lord before Eli. And the word
of the Lord was precious in those days; there was no open vision. 2.
And it came to pass at that time, when Eli was laid down in his place,
and his eyes began to wax dim, that he could not see; 8. And ere the
lamp of God went out in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God
was, and Samuel was laid down to sleep; 4. That the Lord called Samuel:
and he answered, Here am I. 5. And he ran onto Eli, and said, Here am
I; for thou calledst me. And he said, I called not; lie down again. And
he went and lay down. 6. And the Lord called yet again, Samuel. And
Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call
me. And he answered, I called not, my son; lie down again. 7. Now
Samuel did not yet know the Lord, neither was the word of the Lord yet
revealed unto him. 8. And the Lord called Samuel again the third time.
And he arose and went to Eli, and said, Here am I; for thou didst call
me. And Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child. 9. Therefore
Eli said unto Samuel, Go, lie down: and it shall be, if He call thee,
that thou shalt say, Speak, Lord; for Thy servant heareth. So Samuel
went and lay down in his place. 10. And the Lord came, and stood, and
called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak;
for Thy servant heareth. 11. And the Lord said to Samuel, Behold, I
will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that
heareth it shall tingle. 12. In that day I will perform against Eli all
things which I have spoken concerning his house: when I begin, I will
also make an end. 13. For I have told him that I will judge his house
for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made
themselves vile, and he restrained them not. 14. And therefore I have
sworn unto the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not
be purged with sacrifice nor offering for ever.'--1 SAMUEL ill. 1-14.
The opening words of this passage are substantially repeated from 1
Samuel ii. 11,18. They come as a kind of refrain, contrasting the
quiet, continuous growth and holy service of the child Samuel with the
black narrative of Eli's riotous sons. While the hereditary priests
were plunging into debauchery, and making men turn away from the
Tabernacle services, Hannah's son was ministering unto the Lord, and,
though no priest, was 'girt with an ephod.' This white flower blossomed
on a dunghill. The continuous growth of a character, from a child
serving God, and to old age walking in the same path, is the great
lesson which the story of Samuel teaches us. 'The child is father of
the man,' and all his long days are 'bound each to each' by true
religion. There are two types of experience among God's greatest
servants. Paul, made an Apostle from a persecutor, heads the one class.
Timothy in the New Testament and Samuel in the Old, represent the
other. An Augustine or a Bunyan is made the more earnest, humble, and
whole-hearted by the remembrance of a wasted youth and of God's
arresting mercy. But there are a serenity and continuity about a life
which has grown up in the fear of God that have their own charm and
blessing. It is well to have 'much transgression' forgiven, but it may
be better to have always been 'innocent' and ignorant of it. Pardon
cleanses sin, and even turns the memory of it into an ally of holiness;
but traces are left on character, and, at the best, years have been
squandered which do not return. Samuel is the pattern of child religion
and service, to which teachers should aim that their children may be
conformed. How beautifully his double obedience is expressed in the
simple words! His service was 'unto the Lord,' and it was 'before Eli';
that is to say, he learned his work from the old man, and in obeying
him he served God. The child's religion is largely obedience to human
guides, and he serves God best by doing what he is bid,--a lesson
needed in our days by both parents and children.
Samuel's peaceful service is contrasted, in the second half of the
first verse, with the sad cessation of divine revelations in that
dreary time of national laxity. A demoralised priesthood, an alienated
people, a silent God,--these are the outstanding features of the period
when this fair life of continuous worship unfolded itself. This flower
grew in a desert. The voice of God had become a tradition of the past,
not an experience of the present. 'Rare' conveys the idea better than
'precious.' The intention is not to tell the estimate in which the word
was held, but the infrequency of its utterance, as appears from the
following parallel clause. The fact is mentioned in order to complete
the picture of Samuel's 'environment' to fling into relief against that
background his service, and to prepare the way for the narrative of the
beginning of an epoch of divine speech. When priests are faithless and
people careless, God's voice will often sound from lowly childlike
lips. The man who is to be His instrument in carrying on His work will
often come from the very centre of the old order, into which he is to
breathe new life, and on which he is to impress a new stamp.
The artless description of the night in the Tabernacle is broken by the
more general notice of Eli's dim sight, which the Revised Version
rightly throws into a parenthesis. It is somewhat marred, too, by the
transposition which the Authorised Version, following some more ancient
ones, has made, in order to avoid saying, as the Hebrew plainly does,
that Samuel slept in the 'Temple of the Lord, where the ark was.' The
picture is much more vivid and tender, if we conceive of the dim-eyed
old man, lying somewhat apart; of the glimmering light, nearly extinct
but still faintly burning; and of the child laid to sleep in the
Tabernacle. Surely the picturesque contrast between the sanctity of the
ark and the innocent sleep of childhood is meant to strike us, and to
serve as connecting the place with the subsequent revelation. Childlike
hearts, which thus quietly rest in the 'secret place of the Most High,'
and day and night are near His ark, will not fail of hearing His voice.
He sleeps secure who sleeps 'beneath the shadow of the Almighty.' May
not these particulars, too, be meant to have some symbolic
significance? Night hung over the nation. The spiritual eye of the
priest was dim, and the order seemed growing old and decrepit, but the
lamp of God had not altogether gone out; and if Eli was growing blind,
Samuel was full of fresh young life. The darkest hour is that before
the dawn; and that silent sanctuary, with the slumbering old half-blind
priest and the expiring lamp, may stand for an emblem of the state of
Israel.
The thrice-repeated and misunderstood call may yield lessons of value.
We note the familiar form of the call. There is no vision, no symbol of
the divine glory, such as other prophets had, but an articulate voice,
so human-like that it is thought to be Eli's. Such a kind of call
fitted the child's stature best. We note the swift, cheery obedience to
what he supposes to be Eli's voice. He sprang up at once, and 'ran to
Eli,'--a pretty picture of cheerful service, grudging not his broken
sleep, which, no doubt, had often been similarly broken by similar
calls. Perhaps it was in order to wait on Eli, quite as much as to tend
the lamp or open the gates, that the singular arrangement was made of
his sleeping in the Temple; and the reason for the previous parenthesis
about Eli's blindness may have been to explain why Samuel slept near
him. Where were Eli's sons? They should have been their father's
attendants, and the watchers 'by night ... in the house of the Lord';
but they were away rioting, and the care of both Temple and priest was
left to a child.
The old man's heart evidently went out to the boy. How tenderly he bids
him lie down again! How affectionately he calls him 'my son,' as if he
was already beginning to feel that this was his true successor, and not
the blackguards that were breaking his heart! The two were a pair of
friends: on the one side were sedulous care and swift obedience by
night and by day; on the other were affection and a discernment of
coming greatness, made the clearer by the bitter contrast with his own
children's lives. The old and the young are good companions for one
another, and often understand each other better and help each other
more than either does his contemporaries.
Samuel mistook God's voice for Eli's, as we all often do. And not less
often we make the converse blunder, and mistake Eli's voice for God's.
It needs a very attentive ear, and a heart purged from selfishness and
self-will, and ready for obedience, to know when God speaks, though men
may be His mouthpieces, and when men speak, though they may call
themselves His messengers. The child's mistake was venial. It is less
pardonable and more dangerous when repeated by us. If we would be
guarded against it, we must be continually where Samuel was, and we
must not _sleep_ in the Temple, but 'watch and be sober.'
Eli's perception that it was God who spoke must have had a pang in it.
It is not easy for the old to recognise that the young hear God's voice
more clearly than they, nor for the superior to be glad when he is
passed over and new truth dawns on the inferior. But, if there were any
such feeling, it is silenced with beautiful self-abnegation, and he
tells the wondering child the meaning of the voice and the answer he
must make. What higher service can any man do to his fellows, old or
young, than to help them to discern God's call and to obey it? What
nobler conception of a teacher's work is there than that? Eli heard no
voice, from which we may probably conclude that, however real the
voice, it was not audible to sense; but he taught Samuel to interpret
and answer the voice which he heard, and thus won some share of a
prophet's reward.
With what expectation in his young heart Samuel lay down again in his
place! This time there is an advance in the form of the call, for only
now do we read that the Lord 'came, and stood, and called' as before. A
manifestation, addressed to the inward eye, accompanied that to the
ear. There is no attempt at describing, nor at softening down, the
frank 'anthropomorphism' of the representation, which is the less
likely to mislead the more complete it is. Samuel had heard Him before;
he sees Him now, and mistake is impossible. But there is no terror nor
recoil from the presence. The child's simplicity saves from that, and
the child's purity; for his little life had been a growing in service
and 'in favour with God and man.'
The answer that came from the child's lips meant far more than the
child knew. It is the answer which we are all bound to make. Let us see
how deep and wide its scope is. It expresses the entire surrender of
the will to the will of God. That is the secret of all peace and
nobleness. There is nothing happy or great for man in this world but to
love and do God's will. All else is nought. This is solid. 'The world
passeth away, ... but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.'
Everything besides is show and delusion, and a life directed to it is
fleeting as the cloud-wrack that sweeps across the sky, and, whether it
is shone on or is black, is equally melting away. Happy the child who
begins with such surrender of self to be God's instrument, and who,
like Samuel, can stand up at the end and challenge men's judgment on
his course!
The answer vows prompt obedience to yet undisclosed duty. God ever
calls His servants to tasks which only by degrees are made known. So
Paul in his conversion was bid to go into Damascus, and there learn
what more he was to do. We must first put ourselves in God's hands, and
then He will lead us round the turn in the road, and show us our work.
We get it set for us bit by bit, but the surrender must be entire. The
details of His will are revealed as we need them for the moment's
guidance. Let us accept them in bulk, and stand to the acceptance in
each single case! That is no obedience at all which says, 'Tell me
first what you are going to bid me do, and then I will see whether I
will do it.' The true spirit of filial submission says, 'I delight to
do Thy will; now show me what it is.' It was a strange, long road on
which Samuel put his foot when he answered this call, and he little
knew where it was to lead him. But the blessing of submission is that
we do not need to know. It is enough to see where to put our lifted
foot. What comes next we can let God settle.
The answer supplicated further light because of present obedience.
'Speak! for Thy servant heareth,' is a plea never urged in vain. The
servant's open ear is a reason for the Lord's open lips. We may be
quite sure that, if we are willing to hear, He is more than willing to
speak; and anything is possible rather than that His children shall be
left, like ill-commanded soldiers on a battlefield, waiting for orders
which never come. 'If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know.'
The sad prophecy which is committed to such apparently incongruous lips
reiterates a former message by 'a man of God.' Eli was a kindly, and,
in his way, good man, but wanting in firmness, and acquiescent in evil,
partly, perhaps, from lack of moral courage and partly from lack of
fervent religion. He is not charged with faults in his own
administration of his office, but with not curbing his disreputable
sons. The threatenings are directed, not against himself, but against
his 'house,' who are to be removed from the high priestly office.
Nothing less than a revolution is foretold. The deposition of Eli's
family would shake the whole framework of society. It is to be utterly
destroyed, and no sacrifice nor offering can purge it. The ulcer must
have eaten deep which required such stern measures for its excision.
The sin was mainly the sons'; but the guilt was largely the father's.
We may learn how cruel paternal laxity is, and how fatal mischief may
be done, by neglect of the plain duty of restraining children. He who
tolerates evil which it is his province to suppress, is an accomplice,
and the blood of the doers is red on his hands.
It was a terrible message to give to a child; but Samuel's calling was
to be the guide of Israel in a period of transition, and he had to be
broken early into the work, which needed severity as well as
tenderness. Perhaps, too, the stern message was somewhat softened, for
the poor old man, by the lips through which it came to him. All that
reverent love could do, we may be sure, the young prophet would do, to
lighten the heavy tidings. Secrecy would be secured, too; for Samuel,
who was so unwilling to tell even Eli what the Lord had said, would
tell none besides.
God calls each child in our homes as truly as He did Samuel. From each
the same obedience is asked. Each may, like the boy in the Tabernacle,
grow up 'in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,' and so escape the
many scars and sorrows of a life wrongly begun. Let parents see to it
that they think rightly of their work, and do not content themselves
with conveying information, but aim at nothing short of helping all
their children to hear and lovingly to yield to the gentle call of the
incarnate God!